Performance, Religion, and Spirituality

The PRS working group examines the interconnection between the forms and impulses of religion, spirituality, and theatrical performance, attending to the ways performance and spiritual life have come into conversation, cooperation, and conflict, both historically and in the present.

KEYWORDS

environment and ecology
memory and corporeality
religion and spirituality
ritual and theology
sacred and secular
transmundane and transformation

EMAIL ADDRESS

prswg.iftr@gmail.com

CONVENERS FOR PERFORMANCE, RELIGION & SPIRITUALITY WORKING GROUP:

Giuliano Campo
g.campo@ulster.ac.uk
Ulster University

Alexandra Mackenzie John

amackenziejohns@byu.edu

Brigham Young University

CFP FOR IFTR 2025

Call for Papers for the

Performance, Religion & Spirituality Working Group at IFTR

in Cologne, Germany 9th - 13th June 2025

Conference Theme: "Carnivals: Ekstasis*Subversion*Metamorphosis."

We welcome proposals for conference papers, performance-presentations, participatory activities, practice-as-research examples, and other innovative forms of academic and artistic inquiry.

IFTR’s Performance, Religion, and Spirituality Working Group is pleased to announce the theme for IFTR’s 2025 conference: "Carnivals: Ekstasis*Subversion*Metamorphosis." We believe that this theme offers a unique opportunity to explore the intersections of performance, religion, and spirituality across different cultural contexts. Carnivals, with their roots in ancient festivals and their evolution into global events, provide fertile ground for examining the nature and essential features of performance, how performance can serve as a site for both religious expression and its subversion, embodying ecstasy, challenging societal norms, and facilitating transformative experiences.

Retaining elements from their ancient roots, Carnival traditions originated in Italy as pre-Lenten celebrations characterised by masquerades, processions, and public spectacles. These festivals often involved a complex relationship with the Catholic Church, sometimes clashing with its teachings while also being intertwined with religious practices. As carnival traditions spread globally, they adapted to local customs and calendars, retaining essential elements like public performance, masquerade, and the subversion of established hierarchies. The Italian Carnival tradition significantly influenced also the development of Commedia dell'arte companies, the first ever recorded professional theatre in Europe, which utilised masked, archetypical characters, and improvisational techniques to critique social and religious norms (Henke, 2002; Muir, 2005).

We are particularly interested in proposals that explore how these elements of carnival manifest in various cultural and historical contexts around the world. For instance, the Venetian Carnival in Italy and the Notting Hill Carnival in London represent European expressions of carnival that reflect local traditions and global diasporic influences, creating spaces for cultural expression and resistance (Cochrane, 2024). Similarly, in Trinidad and Tobago, Carnival is a powerful performance of cultural identity and resistance, born from the blending of African, European, and Indigenous traditions (Sher, 2007).

In the United States, carnivals such as Mardi Gras in New Orleans highlight a rich mix of French, African, and Caribbean influences, where parades, masked balls, and public celebrations serve both as entertainment and as spaces for social commentary and spiritual reflection (Lipsitz, 1988). Meanwhile, in Brazil, Carnival is perhaps the most renowned in the world, particularly in cities like Rio de Janeiro and Salvador de Bahia. Brazilian Carnival is a vibrant amalgamation of African, Portuguese, and Indigenous cultural elements, featuring elaborate parades, samba schools, and street parties that blend sacred and secular traditions, reflecting both religious devotion and a celebration of life (Browning, 1995).

In the Middle East and Far East, carnival-like festivals such as Iran’s Nowruz, which celebrates the Persian New Year, or Japan’s Nebuta Matsuri, a festival featuring illuminated floats and performers in vibrant costumes, blend spiritual beliefs with public festivities (Sharma, Yosufi, 2018; Lee, 2013). In Oceania, events like Tahiti’s Heiva i Tahiti serve as both cultural celebrations and spiritual observances, showcasing traditional Polynesian dance and music (Stevenson, 1990). These global expressions of carnival demonstrate the diverse ways in which performance, religion, and spirituality intersect, often challenging the dichotomies between sacred and secular, spiritual and profane.

We encourage submissions that delve into the following performative dimensions within carnivals and religious rituals:

· Landscape and Urban Processional Performances: How do carnivals and religious processions transform urban and natural landscapes into spaces of sacred or communal gathering? Consider the spiritual and social implications of these transformations in events like the Semana Santa in Spain or Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

· Masks in Rituals and Carnivals: The use of masks in both carnival and religious rituals, such as the Venetian masks or the Yoruba Egungun, allows participants to embody spirits, deities, or anonymous identities, engaging in acts of social critique and transformation (Muir, 2005; Browning, 1995).

· Street Theatre and Performances on carts and chariots: How do street performances and mobile theatre, such as medieval mystery plays or the Hindu Ratha Yatra, create new forms of spiritual engagement and community participation?

· Carnival as a Hypothesis of the Origin of Theatre: Exploring the idea that carnivals and religious rituals may be foundational to the development of theatrical forms, providing insights into the historical and spiritual roots of theatre (Henke, 2002).

· Dynamics of Apotheosis and Derision: Drawing from Grotowski's famous definition, consider the transformative mechanisms of the subversive dynamics emerging from the clash of the sacred and the profane.

Call for Contributions:

· We welcome proposals for conference papers, performance-presentations, participatory activities, practice-as-research examples, and other innovative forms of academic and artistic inquiry. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

· Carnival and religious subversion

· The role of masks and masquerade in spiritual transformation

· Processional performances and their impact on communal spaces

· The relationship between Commedia dell'arte, religious institutions and carnival traditions

· Carnival practices in non-Western contexts and their spiritual dimensions

· Rituals and performances that blend sacred and secular elements

The Performance, Religion, and Spirituality Working Group (PRS) is an open network of scholars and artists dedicated to exploring the interconnections between religious practices, spiritualities, and theatrical performances. We seek to understand how these elements have historically come into conversation, cooperation, and conflict, and how they continue to do so in contemporary contexts. The working group is affiliated with two peer-reviewed journals: Performance, Religion and Spirituality, an open-access journal, and Ecumenica, published by Penn State University Press.

Submission Instructions:

Proposal Requirements: Proposals should be no more than 300 words, accompanied by a 200-word biography.

Submission Process: Proposals must be submitted through IFTR’s submission portal on Cambridge Core; further details can be found via Call for Papers at iftr.org/conference.

(Please note that you must renew your membership or become a member in order to submit: https://www.cambridge.org/core/membership/iftr

Deadline: The submission deadline is 15th January 2025 (please note, it will not be extended this year).

Identification: During the submission process, please specify that your proposal is intended for a working group session and select the Performance, Religion, and Spirituality Working Group.

For any inquiries, please contact the PRS convenors:

Giuliano Campo
g.campo@ulster.ac.uk
Ulster University

Alexandra Mackenzie Johns

amackenziejohns@byu.edu

Brigham Young University

We look forward to your contributions to a rich dialogue on the intersections of performance, religion, and spirituality within the context of carnivals and festive traditions worldwide.

References:

Browning, Barbara (1995) Samba: Resistance in Motion. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Cochrane, Zakariya (2024). Notting Hill Carnival and Rock Against Racism: converging cultures of resistance during late 1970s Britain. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 1–21.

Henke, Robert (2002) Performance and Literature in the Commedia dell'Arte. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sharma, Purnima; Yosufi, Nazir Ahmad (2018) Himalayan and Central Asian Studies; New Delhi Vol. 22, Iss. 4.

Lee, William (2013) "Whose Festival is it?: Patterns of Participation in the Japanese Matsuri" Paragrana, vol. 22, no. 1, 165-179.

Lipsitz, George (1988). Mardi Gras Indians: Carnival and Counter-Narrative in Black New Orleans. Cultural Critique, 10, 99–121.

Muir, Edward (2005) Ritual in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Scher, Philip, W. (2007). The Devil and the Bed-Wetter: Carnival, Memory, National Culture, and Post-Colonial Conciousness in Trinidad. Western Folklore, 66(1/2), 107–126.

Stevenson, Karen (1990). “Heiva”: Continuity and change of a Tahitian celebration. The Contemporary Pacific, 2(2), 255–278.

MISSION STATEMENT

The PRS working group seeks to examine the interconnection between the forms, institutions, practices, traditions and impulses of religion, spirituality and theatrical performance. We seek ways of examining how performance and spiritual life have come into conversation, cooperation and conflict, both historically and in the present. We wish to place our work at the intersection of the scholarly traditions of theatre studies and the study of religion. Both are committed to the critical inquiry of their material, and both are committed the joint participation of scholars from all corners of the world. This group is open to members from all national and cultural backgrounds, and it interests itself in the world’s religious, spiritual, and performative traditions. Spirituality, religion and performance are, in our view, sets of social and cultural practices that have a profound and long-lasting importance to those involved in them. Because these practices are so important, we are committed to a nonsectarian inquiry of them. We assume no particular faith or religious affiliation for our members or our work. Topics of interest might include (but are not limited to):

· The use of performance within religious practices (i.e., ritual or spirituality) and its relationships to secular performance

· The relationship between religion and spirituality, and the ways in which performance may be useful as a tool in negotiating it.

· The interactions between structures of religious institutions and theatres, politically, economically, or legally

· The performative techniques used by religious or spiritual practitioners to make a sense of spirituality manifest

· The political and community-building work of religious, spiritual and aesthetic performances.

· Traditions of religious antipathy towards the theatre, and vice versa

· The secularity of performative aesthetics and ways in which this has been challenged

· Attempts to bridge religious divisions by means of performance

· The nature of the theatrical spectator compared to the religious worshipper or congregant, as well as the theatrical performer as compared to the spiritual practitioner or celebrant

· The transcendent or supernatural in performance

· A comparative analysis of religion, spirituality and theatre as phenomenological and/or epistemological systems

· Religious performances, including as an ecological engagement or as a “theatre” of the oppressed

PRS Working Group members, members of the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR), and members of the Religion and Theatre Focus Group of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) edit Ecumenica, a peer-reviewed journal that twice annually publishes scholarship concerning theatre, performance, and religion. See: www.ecumenicajournal.org

As well as Ecumenica, PRS Working Group members and members of the Religion and Theatre Focus Group of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) have founded the journal PRS – Performance, Religion and Spirituality. The journal’s inaugural number was published October 2017. See: https://openjournals.utoledo.edu/index.php/prs/about